1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data recording, and more particularly to systems for recording voice communications as compressed digital data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,239 (“the '239 patent”) entitled “Pre-Mastering, Archival Optical Recorder That Provides Extended Recording Time” discloses both a pre-mastering, optical recorder and a logging workstation which both receive and condition an analog signal. Both the recorder and the workstation, sometimes referred to as digital loggers, then digitize the conditioned signal storing the digitized data thus obtained in a buffer, preferably either a large RAM or a hard disk. When the digitized data occupies more than a pre-established fraction of the buffer, both the recorder and the workstation further compress the data to recover buffer space thereby permitting recording to continue. The recorder also pre-masters the data for recording onto optical-recording media using an optical-disk recorder included in the digital logger. Instead of an optical-disk recorder, the workstation includes a network interface circuit that interfaces the workstation with a network thereby permitting the logger to transmit digital audio data via the network for recording either to a pre-mastering, optical recorder, or to a digital logger recorder.
Presently, a variety of systems exist, analogous to that described in the '239 patent, for concurrently recording several audio signals from various sources including telephone and radio signals. Usually such systems are self-contained and include:                1. a dedicated microprocessor which operates as a local storage controller; and        2. a Digital Signal Processing (“DSP”) co-processor, usually connected via a Peripheral Component Interface (“PCI”) bus, to the dedicated microprocessor.Systems of this type exhibit decided disadvantages which include complexity, cost, and difficulty in configuration.        